On March 21, there were 1.35 million daily users on blockchain games tracked by DappRadar.com, the highest total since January 7. The daily figure has been picking up steadily since a recent low on February 4th of just over 1 million daily users.
Let’s rewind a few months and see how we got here.
Crypto Gaming Buzz
Crypto Gaming became the latest buzzword in late 2021. With crypto games under development since 2017, crypto came of age in 2021, passing a 2 trillion market cap. DeFi, meme coins, and decentralized applications weren’t just terms used in geek’s basements but were discussed in the halls of Congress and on major business TV shows.
Then the crypto gaming sector went into hyperdrive.
On October 28, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a bombshell name-change announcement, rebranding his company as Meta that included a $10 billion investment into its Metaverse branch. Other Big Tech companies like Google and Microsoft followed with similar investments.
Metaverse-related cryptocurrencies like Decentraland ($MANA) and The Sandbox ($SAND) exploded. The hype in this sector exploded and quickly crossed over into the sectors of gaming and play-to-earn which exploded in popularity at the same time.
Terms that became massively popular hashtags on social media included the following:
#P2E
#P2EGaming
#NFTGaming
#BlockchainGaming
#Metaverse
#MetaverseGaming
#PlayToEarn
The hype became very real. It seems as if dozens of new gaming concepts popped up daily along with promotional campaigns on Twitter, Discord and Telegram.
I started covering this sector last fall, with a tailor-made watchlist here.
The Hype Cooled Off
As the calendar turned into 2021, the hype cooled off. With the Fed talking about raising rates, the crypto market dropped significantly from previous all-time highs. Many of these brand new projects are connected to highly speculative cryptocurrencies, most of them with a market capitalization under $1 billion, many of them under $100 million.
In such a market, when Bitcoin loses 10-20% of its value, these types of cryptocurrencies experience heavy losses. Then, to make things worse, on February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine. The US and many of its allies levied unprecedented sanctions against Russia. Confusion and panic hit markets across the world – from forex and stocks to crypto.
Markets hate uncertainty and let’s call a spade a spade – 2022 hasn’t been the best year for crypto. The current geopolitical environment isn’t exactly conducive for speculative investments especially the crypto gaming sector.
The Show Goes On
Meanwhile, with the hype dying down, builders are builders, and they continue to build out this nascent space. High quality games take years to build, so this is not an overnight sensation like speculation in meme coins.
The fact is, in this environment more and more individuals are starting to actively play games in this new sector. Check it out: 35% more daily users in the past 45 days is significant growth and 59% growth over the past 6 months is major.
Which games are users playing? Let’s take a look at the top 10 blockchain games. This data comes from DappRadar.com:
Out of these top 10 games, four (4) support BSC, three (3) support WAX, two (2) support Ethereum and two (2) support Harmony. The top two games currently per desktop monthly active users support WAX.
Seeing the growth of a gaming ecosystem is bullish for a layer one protocol that supports DApps.
It will be of interest for investors to see if WAX and Harmony continue to increase their share of the crypto gaming markets. These blockchain platforms have been relatively under the radar, especially compared to giants Ethereum ($ETH) and Binance Coin ($BNB). Harmony’s $ONE token has a market cap of around $1.7 billion while the $WAXP token has a market cap of under $600 million as of this writing.
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This content is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute trading advice. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do not invest more than you can afford to lose. The author of this article may hold assets mentioned in the piece.